Scottsboro, Alabama: A Story in Linoleum Cuts. - book review

by Lin Shi Khan and Tony Perez edited by Andrew Lee, with a foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley New York University Press, July 2002 $26.95, ISBN 0-814-75176-8

For those who remember--and refuse to forget--the racially charged "Scottsboro Nine" incident, 1931 was a year marked by one of the most egregious injustices ever perpetrated against African Americans.

That year, nine black youths from Scottsboro, Alabama, hopped a freight train out of town. They were bound for Birmingham in search of work, but instead met with arrests and a travesty of a trial that has become synonymous with racial injustice. Two young white girls and two white boys were on board a train; but after arriving in Birmingham, the white boys were dismissed, and the young black men were accused of raping the girls. They were tried and convicted, and eight of them were sentenced to death. Their case became something of a cause celebre, prompting a legal battle that led to the Supreme Court.

In 1935, the "Scottsboro Nine" story appeared in a book that was printed in Seattle, but came and went without leaving much notice. Little is known about its artist-authors, Lin Shi Kahn and Tony Perez, who illustrated the tragic tale with bold, linoleum-cut images.

Now Andrew Lee, a librarian at New York University who discovered a set of Kahn and Perez's original lino-prints, has reconstituted their visual narrative in a handsome, new edition. His essay about this little-known work sheds light on the circumstances in which it was created. New York University historian Robin D.G. Kelley's essay puts this compelling cultural artifact into context within the history of the struggle for racial equality and the political forces that swirled around it.

Scottsboro, Alabama: A Story in Linoleum Cuts is a disturbing if visually stunning record of an episode that should not be forgotten. To document history, it suggests, is to bear witness, however painfully, to the evil within some human souls--and to the redemptive power that being aware of that ominous energy it can bring.

--Edward M. Gomez is the founding author of the New Design book series (Rockport Publishers).

COPYRIGHT 2002 Cox, Matthews & Associates
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group